Veracity

Artist statement:

People are like stained - glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within.

- Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

I was in a rut, I wanted to do something new. Since college I have been doing the same thing, I had ceasing to push myself as an artist. Thoughts started to overwhelm my thinking, "What is it to create?" "Does form come from structure?" I would have been the first to tell you that my work had become formulaic go out shoot come back edit. Was I even thinking about my art? The answer is, yes, but I hadn't been moving forward as an artist. I was comfortable in what I was doing after all it was the same thing. I wanted something more, I wanted to get back to the art of creating.

Maybe this all stemmed from a subconscious state of being, but I needed something more. I must confess I hate rules, I feel like photographers above all other forms of art pigeon hole the medium by putting arbitrary rules on what makes a good photograph. I've been following the rules that OTHER photographers had placed upon me. I had been a good little bee doing what I was told, every little thing I did had a formula and lacked the one thing I was craving, variety, a focus, a uniqueness that is different from that of my contemporaries.

I need to be more creative, I want to take things back to basics, of form and structure. I want to look at the printed photo like a painter would look at a blank canvas I could do anything I wanted, I want to look at the camera as a brush, light as the paint. I have always been fascinated by the Abstract, Expressionist, their use of color and at time a minimalistic use of paint on the canvas influenced by great artist like Rothko, Guston, Frankenthaler, Reinhardt, Pollock, Still, Lewis, Newman, Kline, Motherwell and many more. In this series sought to use light in a way to almost mimic the painters of old. Part 1 (Ambiguity) of the series has a dark color palette, in doing so I was working in mostly low light situations. In the Second part of the series (Veracity), I wanted to deal with light that utilizes a brighter color palette.

Like I said something was missing in my life, I playing the victim. But why was I the victim, what series of events led me to the state? Of course all these questions that I'm raising our conjecture they are rhetorical in nature, only I can answer them. It isn't up to the viewer to come up with reprisal. The job of patron is to look at my process of dealing with this anger and sorrow, these photos are my answer to the problems I have been dealing with. Is images deal with anger, sorrow, fear, uneasiness, hatred, self-loathing, and worthlessness. Okay admit that last part sounds like a pity party, this is not my intent.

Please enjoy the product of my neuroses, as I hope you've enjoyed my other work works of art. I would try not to put much into the titles, the fact is these are meant to be abstract. Although there are titles, they aren't meant to be affirmation. Only you can give them substance or pretext. After all if I wanted you to have pretext I wouldn't have made them abstract.

Thank You, for your time and patronage!

John A. Carlos II

Veracity

Veracity is second part of my conceptional abstract photography project for 2014.